


Fish Stealing Brat

by Aithilin



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternative Universe - merfolk, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 08:04:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10963110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: Nyx had been told the stories of the creatures in the ocean for years. None of them mentioned pretty blue eyes and a mischievous smile.





	Fish Stealing Brat

**Author's Note:**

> This was already in the works when someone over at [Tumblr](http://aithilin.tumblr.com/) mentioned a craving.

There had been stories for as long as he could remember. They passed around the towns on cold nights when sailors didn’t return, they passed over campfires when he had dragged his friends out into the forests for the summer. He had been told the stories ever since he was a child— the myths the legends, the tall tales of beauties emerging from the cold ocean waves. The tales passed through bars and taverns and trade points across the islands of alluring creatures that slipped men and women beneath the waves. Creatures that never strayed far inland, that never let themselves be caught in nets. 

He had seen the shapes beneath his own boats when he went out. Long, languid shadows that passed around his nets like ghosts. That barely rippled the surface of the water as he watched them pass beneath him, as there were curious knocks on the bottom of his boat and tugs to his nets and lines. 

Nyx tried to ignore the shadows and shapes and the creatures he had convinced himself were the creations of bored, drunk sailors with too much time on the water. With too much time to see strange fish and whales and daemons lurking in the depths and in cold dark nights. He convinced himself that he could sleep when he got home, that any creature sniffing around his waters would need to be dealt with quickly and quietly, and he would need to be alert for that.

None of the stories mentioned blue eyes. 

None of them mentioned blue eyes and dark hair and pale skin. 

The alluring creatures in the stories were always beautiful, singing, described in the vague terms of all myths. The creatures were soft and yielding until you got close. They were sensuous and inviting and coiled or sprawled across the sun-warmed rocks in the shallows. They were always the songs carried over bright, warm winds. 

They weren’t blue eyes and quiet smiles peering over the edge of his boat. They weren’t the long limbs of young men, paused mid-theft of a fish from a just-emptied net. 

They certainly weren’t soft words of; “In my defence, I thought you were sleeping.”

Nyx didn’t know any stories that really detailed the way one of these creatures could just steal his catch and disappear with a smile. He didn’t know of any stories that mentioned the creatures speaking rather than singing, smirking rather than smiling, or slipping back beneath cold, grey waters with a stolen catch. 

The second time it happened, he caught the creature’s wrist and watched those blue eyes widen in surprise. He felt the strong pull back, saw those bright eyes harden under the sudden attention. Nyx offered a smile; “Not that one. Take the herring.”

He watched the hesitation and then the indignity when the creature saw the size of the offered fish compared to the one he wanted. “Two.”

“Fine, two.”

The stories definitely never mentioned these creatures as little brats with bright smiles. 

Now, when he went out on the water, Nyx came prepared. He learnt that the creature only ever came during the dusk and dawn— that he peeked over the edge of the boat first before he stole his meal (at least Nyx assumed it was a meal) to make sure it was Nyx settled there instead of a stranger. He learnt that the creature identified him by the nets he cast— the knots used distinct to the Ulric family and traditions. He learnt the creature tapped at the bottom of his boat in a pattern to test that it was the same wood, that it was the right boat, that it was the “friendly” Nyx rather than any of the other madmen who spent the night trying to scrape together a catch to sell. 

He learnt the creature’s name was Noctis. 

He had learnt that Noctis was playful and curious, and had a tail of dark blue scales that shone like stars when it caught the lights. He had learnt that the creature wasn’t as long as he expected, that he could curl quite easily in the bow of the boat. That he was the soft tugs on the nets and lines Nyx laid, because he was testing them, or resetting bait.

Nyx learnt that Noctis was good company during the long nights.

“Here,” Nyx said, holding out a mackrel for the creature; “I have no idea what you’re going to do when I’m gone.”

“Gone?” Noctis had settled into what Nyx was starting to consider his usual spot, had smiled as he took up Nyx’s extra knife to start scraping the scales off the offered fish.

Nyx tried not to think about how the creature actually ate as he reeled in the last lines. “My season is almost over, I have other work to do.”

“On land?”

“Sort of,” the movements were second nature now— take in the lines, toss the catch into storage, and ignore the way Noct could bite into his dinner while watching the whole process with bright blue eyes. “Raiding the coast.”

“Those big boats, right?”

“You know about it?”

“Of course I do,” Noct flashed a smile— one of the rare ones that was all fang and far less innocent young man. “Let me know which boat you’re on.”

Nyx knew there were stories of the boats suddenly tipping too. Of the survivors claiming monsters dragging their friends under in the churning waters and chaos— of flashes of scales and fangs and bloodied pale skin. Nyx tried not to think of his Noctis like that; tried not to think of Noctis as the menacing beast older sailors and raiders warned about. “You could just not tip any of them?”

“That would ruin all our fun.”

“You’re terrifying, Noct.”

“Can I have that redfish now?”

The raids were a summer tradition, a challenge to prod and poke at the edges of the Niflheim outposts along the old Lucian coastline. There were resources they needed— food, weapons, money— that couldn’t be traded for without the heavy taxes and tariffs the Empire levied. Resources that would make so many lives back home better than they were, grant so many more opportunities to let the Niflheim forces remember that Galahd was a dangerous nation to cross. A reminder to the Niflheim Empire that the Lucian ruins— the dry and crumbling bones of a great kingdom— were no deterrent to a nation that had never bothered to build up grandiose cities or took pride in showing off anything other than skills in war. 

Accordo had the good sense to just pay them to leave.

“And the challenge is just fun,” Nyx told Noct one night when the winds were guiding and no one else was on watch. Where Nyx could lean over the edge of the longboat with a grin as he watched the shadow of that tail move beneath the dark surface. Nights in travel where he could speak softly to the creature while his friends slept. “They’re fortified, so it’s interesting trying to get in and what we need.”

“I could just show you the way in,” Noct said, a hand tangled in the ropes, tail flicking water up with the wake as he let himself be pulled along. 

“What, you want to raid?”

“What makes you think we don’t already?”

Nyx considered that, considered the way Noctis referred to others of his kind. Considered that Noctis must have come from somewhere. “You know, I only ever see you.”

“Yes.”

“Is there a reason I haven’t met anyone else?”

“Yes.”

“Do I get to know that reason?”

The smile was almost expected now, the little flash of fang and mischief as Noct loosed himself from the ropes and disappeared again beneath the surface. Nyx smiled after him, settled into his watch and wondered how those lips would feel against his.

He didn’t think much of it when the raids started— when they settled on one of the smaller, unfortified towns where the Nifs had started the fight against them. Where the Nifs had let loose their own volleys well before they were within a proper range. Nyx didn’t think much of it when they hit the shallows and the docks, when the first of them struggled to the solid land under fire and started the well-practised strategies of cutting down those now caught on the defensive. He didn’t think anything of it when he saw the fires start— the fuels dumped across the water to target their boats, the flames struck to strand them on the foreign soil. He watched as men and women he had grown up with, travelled with, fought with, struggled to the shore alongside him. 

He watched as they were granted an open passage by a well-timed collapse of a dock, a pier, of a new fire catching well away from where the raiders were struggling to land. As he ducked against the splinters and shrapnel of a pier cracking and breaking, he caught sight of a creature like Noct beneath the supports. He saw a brighter smile and bright hair, bright golds shining in the firelight in a flash and flick of a tail before the creature disappeared again, the chaos of a broken dock in its wake.

Libertus and Crowe were separated from him in the fray, caught glimpses of them with the Nif soldiers further up the shore. He saw Libertus fall from a dock with his shoulder bleeding; saw Crowe pushed back onto the sand as he struggled to get to her. To get her back on her feet. To cut down her attacker. 

He didn’t expect the knife that appeared from no where— thrown from the sea with enough force that he could only see the bone handle of the dagger lodged in the Nif’s throat. Crowe finished her attacker off, struggled back to her feet. And Nyx saw the familiar movement of a tail in the shallows— a softer green rather than Noct’s midnight-sky dark, longer, stronger— before he was checking his friend over for injury. 

He saw Noct only once when looking for survivors or enemies by the docks— once they had subdued the town and were taking stock of what they had left, of what the fire had taken from them. He saw dark hair and bright blue eyes, and the stain of blood from around a mouth he had been admiring the night before. “Noct, have you seen—?”

“Gladio has your friend,” Noct said, wiping at the stain with his palm, making a face at the mess of it. “He’s fine.”

“Where is he?”

“On the beach. Iggy wants his knife back, if you don’t mind.” 

“You look like you tore someone’s throat out, Noct.”

“I would think so. Just toss the knife into the water if you find it.”

Nyx wrenched the bone and obsidian knife from the Nif it had felled as he followed the beach to find his friend. He tried not to think about fangs and blood as he searched the shore.

Noct wasn’t wrong, Libertus was a safe distance from the fight away, back against wet stone and a rough bandage around his shoulder. His head back, mouth open, but Nyx could see the reassuring rise and fall of breath as he got closer. He checked the wound, the wrap— the torn edges of a sail tied off with expertise Nyx had seen from soldier— and blood, before he tossed the strange knife into the waves. 

It was days before he saw his creature again. Days of being stranded while the ships were rebuilt and the dead buried or burned. The little trinkets lost from the boats— the keepsakes from home, the supplies and clothes and little things no one had thought about before— ended up appearing in the new boats as they travelled. And little tidbits of dinners were thrown over the side to share with the creatures the rest of the hardened sailors were starting to believe in. 

Creatures that the rest of the sailors were starting to see more often. 

There were stories of creatures everywhere in Eos— of the demons that lurked in the night and in dark places. Myths and legends that everyone in Galahd had grown up with. Stories of the creatures that could snatch and claw and drown those who ventured too far into the dark waters. None of those stories mentioned that the creatures could speak and laugh, and fight, and climb their way over the sides of boats or tangle themselves in rigging to get better views. None of those stories mentioned that the creatures could be befriended, or allied with. Or that there were so many of them lurking beneath the surface, just riding along on the wake of passing ships.

None of those stories mentioned that the creatures had a society and a structure. Or that their prince was a little meal-stealing savage brat.


End file.
